


Beneath You

by thespectaclesofthor



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Begging, Bondage, Edging, Established Relationship, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Safewords, Shame, Trust, movie canon, ruthlessly mutilating history for the sake of a PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:51:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4013386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespectaclesofthor/pseuds/thespectaclesofthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘You’re still learning to trust me,’ Esca said.</p>
<p>‘I trust you with my life.’ An automatic response. One he need not even consider. Did Esca not have <i>proof</i> of that? How many times had-</p>
<p>‘I want more,’ Esca said. ‘I want more than that, from you. Trust me with your honour. Your shame. Beg me to give you pleasure, and this can all be over right now. No more ropes. No chair. Just warmth and pleasure.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyTiferet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTiferet/gifts).



> Dear historians. I apologise.

The ropes were tight around his limbs. Not so tight they’d cut off circulation – not for another few hours yet – but enough that Marcus felt every inch of the scratchy rope. Enough that he wondered if Esca had tied his wrists together behind the chair’s back deliberately. Wondered if Esca sought to remind Marcus of being bound behind a horse and pulled all the way to the Seal People. He knew Esca well enough now to know that he could be that cunning when he wanted to be; when he wanted to  _push._

Now was one of those times.

Marcus shifted, legs tied to the chair’s legs, though nothing cut into the ugly scar above his left knee. Esca circled him – fully clothed – with a feline grace. It echoed in the gleam of his calculating eyes. Esca’s own hands were clasped behind his back, and Esca considered Marcus as a teacher considered an unruly pupil, or a commander an unruly centurion.

A squaring of the shoulders then to meet that gaze, despite the heat in his blood and the faint chill growing upon his skin.

‘You carry it everywhere,’ Esca said, ‘this fear of being unmanned. Your family’s good name restored to you. Do you fear dishonour? Is that it? Or behaving dishonourably?’

Marcus watched him, listened to every one of the questions, carefully and precisely delivered. Something quaked through him, though he didn’t show it in his body. Only felt a heaviness that might have been dread and anticipation and something else. The last time Esca had him in ropes had been only the second time they’d been physically intimate, the ropes alone made Marcus feel pushed to some great precipice.

Esca knew that too.

Marcus swallowed to think that perhaps this was about a conversation they’d had not two days ago, sitting around a crackling fire outside the home they’d made for themselves. It was Esca who sought to cook outdoors more often, especially when the sun began to prickle at their skin with the bite that signalled summer. Marcus thought there might be stories behind it, but when he’d asked, Esca had only grinned toothily at him and said that eating under the stars tasted better.

That evening though, a night of stops and starts in their conversation. He thought perhaps Esca was trying to get at something, but every question he asked was vague, until:

‘Begging is beneath you, isn’t it?’ Esca said, something sharp in his eyes. Though, Marcus thought he could count on one – maybe two – hands, the amount of times that Esca’s eyes _weren’t_ sharp. Always needling at him, even when they were gentle or friendly.

Marcus looked directly ahead and turned the words over, then nodded.

Esca nodded also, but like one considering an item for barter that had a few flaws but might still be worth purchasing. Marcus caught the way his lips tightened into something that wasn’t quite a smile, and he expected to be challenged on it, even dreaded it.

But Esca hadn’t pushed for it, and Marcus told himself he wasn’t disappointed.

He should have known that Esca was only biding his time.

‘Are you cold?’ Esca said. But before Marcus could even respond to say no, Esca was already there with a light linen sheet, pulling it over Marcus’ shoulders, making him feel invalided, or as though Esca was still his slave, or somehow…both at the same time. Marcus’ jaw tensed, and Esca noticed and smirked and stepped back, considering Marcus once more.

‘You’re still learning to trust me,’ Esca said.

‘I trust you with my life.’ An automatic response. One he need not even consider. Did Esca not have _proof_ of that? How many times had-

‘I want more,’ Esca said. ‘I want more than that, from you. Trust me with your honour. Your shame. Beg me to give you pleasure, and this can all be over right now. No more ropes. No chair. Just warmth and pleasure.’

Marcus stared at him, knew the muscles of his throat worked, fingers flexing behind the chair.

‘You can’t beg me, can you?’ Esca said, a half-smile finding him. ‘It’s easy enough to trap you, Marcus. You feel enough shame because you like these ‘games’ of ours. But what would it mean if you had to _beg_ me to make it stop? To give you something you wanted? Which one are you going to choose?’

Esca talking in questions wasn’t often a good thing. Especially if there were ropes involved.

Marcus’ eyes drifted away, he looked instead at the corner, kept his breathing steady. Esca wouldn’t buy it. Already knew so much about his reactions, more even than Marcus knew about himself.

Esca walked closer, stood before him and then reached out with both hands and cupped Marcus’ face. Marcus held still for it, lips thinning, and then closed his eyes when Esca’s thumbs touched beneath his chin and ran over the scar there. The skin around it was hypersensitive, the scar itself numb. Each brush reminded Marcus of his home, his family, his country, his honour. _Rome._

The first time he’d done that, caressed the scar, Marcus had rolled away and then gotten up and then walked into another room. Esca hadn’t followed, and eventually Marcus had to return and as soon as he’d gotten onto the bed once more, Esca had done it _again._

‘I’m going to help you make a decision,’ Esca said, voice warm and nearly soft. ‘I’ll guide you. I know the way.’

‘The way to what? Dishonour?’ Marcus said, his voice rough.

‘Pleasure,’ Esca said, smiling. ‘Whatever else you want to attach to it, I suppose you will.’

One hand trailed down and stroked over his neck, the other trailed further, caressing rope and skin both. Trailing over the fibres where they cut underneath Marcus’ pectorals, dragging lines up to his shoulders, carelessly brushing over one nipple, over and over again, until Marcus’ lips tightened at the corners and he felt his eyelids grow heavy.

Esca went away and Marcus watched him return with another chair, sitting facing Marcus, more comfortably able to reach almost anywhere he wanted. And he did. His hands roamed, fingers following the lines of muscle on his stronger thigh, then his weaker one. Bumping over his abdomen. Giving special care to the lean, sensitive lines of his flank.

Marcus’ cock stirred, unhindered, and he felt his heart beating harder, heat rising between his legs. But Esca ignored his cock and kept touching him freely. As freely as Marcus often wanted to touch Esca, to savour the long, lean lines of him, all that lithe and wiry strength that made him one of the fastest, fleetest runners he’d ever met.

His fingers twitched behind him, rope around his wrists reminding him of a different time. But Esca hadn’t betrayed him then – not truly – and Esca wouldn’t betray him now.

Esca would want him to betray himself.

Marcus wasn’t stupid. He caught the way Esca tried to chip away at the deep-seated sense of shame within him. Sometimes Marcus even agreed with him, understood why Esca did it, even understood the need for it. A long time ago, he’d placed dams and walls and boulders and rocks in front of all the deep, winding rivers inside of himself. Checked lust in place, removed actions that might lead to excess, prayed to Minrathous to keep him focused and give him clarity in thought and action. It had kept him strong, made his goals clear, but now that those goals had been attained…

He couldn’t remove the blocks and stones he’d placed inside of himself on his own.

Esca looked down between Marcus’ legs, Marcus in turn seeing the honey-brown gleam of Esca’s hair by the light of the flames flickering in the hearth. So he couldn’t see when Esca’s fingers wrapped around his plumping cock, could only jerk in the ropes, exhale as steadily as possible, try to control his breath.

No talking now, between the two of them. Only Esca’s hand moving steadily up and down. He paused once to spit into his palm, brought it back and there was only enough slick for Marcus’ skin to catch sometimes and smooth in others. Between Esca’s rough palms and not nearly enough spit, it was a fractious pleasure that built.

But it built all the same, and Marcus leaned his head back and didn’t feel anywhere near close to begging, tried to focus on the pleasure of it, instead of every single point where the rope kept him bound and unable to even move his hips into what Esca was doing.

A tightness in his thighs, in his lower back, a heaviness all through him and a faint ache in his cock – Marcus couldn’t help his hips jerking upwards, even though he had nothing more than millimetres of traction. Tried to rut faster into Esca’s palm.

Esca only stopped and pushed his chair back.

‘Need oil,’ he said, by way of explanation.

Marcus watched him go, eyebrows pulling together, biting the inside of his bottom lip. Esca did _not_ need oil. Another minute, and Marcus would have spilled.

Esca knew that.

When Esca returned, it was oil slick fingers that wrapped around him, smoothing the way, thumb firming generously over the head of Marcus’ cock. A slippery hand that moved all the way down to the base of him, rolling his balls, slipping even further back and stroking the sensitive skin behind. Marcus felt a fluttery sensation in his lungs, opened his mouth and looked away and kept his breathing slow and quiet and steady.

The stroking now was faster, focused, Esca’s grip firm and the twist of his hand clever, rubbing the calluses of his palm over the head of Marcus’ cock. Marcus couldn’t even lean his head far enough forward to rest it on Esca’s shoulder. Warmth blossomed through him. He’d forgotten all about the chill. Felt, instead, feverish beneath the sheet and the pace of Esca’s hand.

‘Come on,’ Esca said insistently. ‘Come on, Marcus.’

Marcus nodded, focused on the heat, the ache, sought completion even as he remembered – as though from a distance – that completion wasn’t the point of this. But perhaps Esca had changed his mind. Perhaps-

Esca’s hand stopped moving on his cock, his other hand holding Marcus’ hip down when he bucked hard upwards. Not enough to gain enough friction.

‘ _Esca.’_

Esca looked up at him, eyes glittering with a hard, ferocious want that stole the breath out of Marcus’ lungs. Then, a hungry mouth upon his, lips forcing his own mouth open, the tongue that spoke so many barbed words soft and confident, stealing whatever breath Marcus tried to get back for himself.

‘Beg me,’ Esca said, leaning back and watching the way Marcus followed, his mouth wanting. ‘Beg me, and you can have whatever you wish.’

_‘Esca,’_ Marcus said again, turning his name into a complaint.

The laugh Esca gave was somehow cruel and gentle all at the same time.

One hand rubbing at his thigh in a parody of comfort, the other returning to his cock and squeezing it, slow and rhythmic, not enough to make him come, but enough to keep him hard.

Marcus’ head tipped back, he stared up at the ceiling. He would _not_ beg. Not for something so crude. There were some things that one didn’t do. Esca wouldn’t trick him out of it, and Marcus could hold out; _would_ hold out. However long it took.

He managed, even, to stay silent the next three times that Esca brought him close to completion and then eased off. But each time he suffered for it, and by the third time, Esca had palms on Marcus’ trembling shoulders as though to keep the shaking contained. The sheet had slipped off him and exposed sweat-sheened skin. Marcus swallowed, sounds stuck in the back of his throat. All the gasping he’d forced in lieu of noises had made his mouth dry.

His cock hurt. Felt thicker and heavier than it ever had in his life. He swore he could feel a pulse in the base of it, another at the tip. His toes hurt from curling.

He forced himself to take a long, slow breath when Esca’s hands moved away from his shoulder and then Esca pushed the chair back again. When Esca returned, he stood instead of sitting, one hand cupping the back of Marcus’ head and tilting it, the other pushing a cup of water to his mouth.

‘Drink,’ Esca said, and Marcus blinked up at him and opened his mouth and thought of what others might say to see them like this. But it wasn’t enough to stop him from drinking the small sips of water that Esca fed to him. ‘Better?’

Marcus nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘It doesn’t remind me of being your slave,’ Esca said, sounding pleased, setting the cup of water upon the floor. ‘Not with you in ropes, not like this.’

‘That’s something,’ Marcus remarked drily.

‘Are you ready?’ Esca said, sitting in front of him once more, pulling his own chair back into place. ‘We begin again.’

A short, faint sound in the back of Marcus’ throat, before he was ready to stop himself, to control it. One of longing and despair both.

Esca met his eyes briefly, searching, then looked down again, hiding his own face from view, presumably watching the way each one of his fingers wrapped around Marcus’ length, starting at the base and pulling skin up to the tip. Then his other hand, sliding along his inner thigh and holding his balls, alternating between gently pushing them upwards as though mimicking the sensation of pre-release, before pulling down just enough that it was a shifting, tidal ache all the way through Marcus’ spine.

Esca meant to break the words out of him. His movements were slow but not teasing, instead intent on creating a heavy, terrible pressure that promised bliss if Esca’s hands would move faster, differently, give him _more._

It was then, ten minutes later, when Marcus began to sense the word that Esca wanted to hear in the back of his own throat. A plosive on the tip of his tongue that could end everything, except that he didn’t beg, and he didn’t beg for _this._ Marcus bit into his own tongue and tried to think about anything else and failed, abjectly, as two fingers pushed along his perineum and reached as far back as they could to nudge at his hole. The angle was all wrong for penetration, but even fingertips prodding at sensitive skin as his other hand continued to slowly jack Marcus’ cock was enough to leave him dazed with want.

‘Why won’t you just say it?’ Esca said, his voice not as even as before, his words more accented; it all meant he was getting aroused now. ‘No one else would know. You trust me with your life, Marcus. Why not this?’

That was the question, wasn’t it? But Marcus couldn’t even examine why, anymore. He was too busy trying to arch his whole being into Esca’s touch, a cut off groan stopping somewhere in the middle of a throat that still ached from the gasping he couldn’t keep at bay.

‘Marcus,’ Esca said, as intense as his hands moving between Marcus’ legs. ‘You know what word to say to me. If you cannot beg. If you need this to be over.’

Marcus shook hard, then gathered strength together, enough to nod once. He did know the word. The one that would stop everything. The one he’d roared over and over once in an amphitheatre of Romans, all to stop Esca from being killed.

_Life._

The irony then, that Marcus had begged for Esca’s life on his behalf, but he wouldn’t beg now. Not for something as base as his own pleasure, his release. But nor could he say The Word.

It wasn’t that he had refused to say it _ever._ Esca had set about ensuring that Marcus _would_ say it, pushed him too far once, asked for something that Marcus couldn’t do and then, when Marcus had shuddered into saying the word that would stop everything – all so that he wouldn’t have to harm Esca, despite Esca _commanding_ him to – Esca had reassured him with brevity that it was necessary. That he had to know that Marcus could wrap his mouth around a word that halted these things that happened between them.

Both the word, and the act of begging, both were walls around him, and they moved closer. He could almost feel the compression of it, but it was only bands of muscle tightening around him.

‘Don’t your balls _ache?’_ Esca said, a taunt as much as anything else. Marcus groaned in response to that too. Esca knew all the answers already.

But still, he refused to beg, even as he couldn’t quite make himself stop thinking about how long he’d been in ropes, how long this had gone on for. So much longer than some of their other games, because Marcus was still getting used to any sexual act that wasn’t simply functional, was trying to understand the place for lengthy pleasures and dragging things out. It all seemed so gluttonous, when there were so many other things he could be doing. Instead of something productive, Esca would tie him up and insist that this was a better way to spend both of their hard won time.

‘You’re throbbing for me,’ Esca said. ‘Feel.’

He let go of Marcus’ cock and it sprang back against his belly, against two bands of rope. Then it seemed to strain all on its own, though part of it was the restlessness in Marcus legs, his belly, even Esca’s hand still between his legs, now around his balls once more.

_Please._

Marcus screwed his eyes shut, bit at both lips at the same time, a breath huffing sharp through flared nostrils.

_No._

But if he didn’t say The Word, and if he didn’t beg… Esca’s patience would outlast his own. But he couldn’t _beg_ , not for something like this.

He wrestled with himself, and Esca only stroked him while he did. A hand trailing up to his neck, fingers curling over the scar under his chin, as though beckoning him to come closer. Then oil-slick fingertips tracing his jaw, moving slowly over his thinned lips, almost thoughtfully. But Esca’s palm then rubbed over his chest, callouses catching at both his nipples, squeezing at one shoulder, gripping a handful of bicep and digging in.

It wasn’t just pleasure, hadn’t been now for some time. It was pleasure-pain, a dull stone in his lower back that pressed at him from the inside, a throbbing in his cock, a sharpness in his breaths, in his fingers clutching at one another. They were colder than the rest of his body, circulation becoming an issue. They hadn’t been at it for hours, but they’d been at it long enough.

‘Ask something else of me,’ Marcus said, the words bursting out of him.

‘No,’ Esca said. ‘You’re going to give me this. Or you’re going to say the word. Either way, I want you to trust that I will see you through the shame of it.’

‘I _trust_ you,’ Marcus said, then cried out when fingers curled around his cock.

They moved quickly, pushed him close, then closer, far too fast, this was nothing like before. Marcus was gasping, keeping his mouth open, refusing to let his lips touch in case they shaped words that would beg for his pleasure, because he wanted it so badly now, to feel the explosion of it. Closer still, and he was at the peak of it and felt his balls tightening and was nodding frantically like Esca had asked him a question and then-

-Nothing. All movement stopped between his legs and Esca wasn’t even hushing him like he’d done in the past, only watching him, his gaze pinning him to the chair as much as the ropes did.

Marcus only stared at him, indignant, frustrated, desperate. He couldn’t even stop the way he strained against the ropes.

‘Do you want me to show you the way? I did say I’d guide you.’

Esca divested himself of his clothing quickly, letting it all fall to the floor and standing so close to Marcus that when his hand started moving on his own reddened cock, the edge of his fist bumped into Marcus’ chest. Marcus watched and refused to let loose whatever high sound was gathering in the back of his mouth, even as it flooded with saliva, even as he wanted to _taste._ And that _did_ shame him, but he couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop the heat in himself even as his own body hurt and his own cock strained for the attention that Esca was giving his own.

_‘Esca,’_ Marcus managed, and Esca looked at him with eyes that knew exactly what Marcus was trying to say with those two syllables. Knew exactly how Marcus was trying to cheat the game by pleading without saying the right words.

‘Close,’ Esca said, breathless. ‘You can trust me with it, Marcus. All of it. You’d… _ah,_ you value your life less than your honour, don’t you? Trust me with it.’

All insistent, the words winnowing into him, and he was still hard despite exhaustion, despite the twitches in his legs and the way his scar hurt and he even knew that Esca would massage his sore muscles later, if Marcus would only give him this.

Marcus gasped when Esca’s succinct movements on his own cock eventually led to his hips jerking and white, creamy spill falling as hot as blood onto Marcus’ chest. Marcus’ own cock twitched between his legs, he knew that if he could come from this alone, he would have. As it was, he felt bruised inside, felt his lips touch on a word that he held back from, even now, even as he was getting so frustrated with himself, with the pleasure-pain of it, with everything, that his eyes were beginning to burn.

He yanked hard at the ropes, squirmed and tugged and groaned when Esca sat down and placed grounding hands on him, even as Esca took deep breaths to calm himself.

‘Trust me with it,’ Esca said again. _‘Please,_ Marcus. See how easy it is to say?’

Esca was doing everything to show him the way. One hand sank down inevitably between his legs, the other wiped messily in the spill that clung to Marcus’ skin, painted through it, fingers dragging the stuff over Marcus’ lips until his mouth opened and Esca’s fingers pressed shallow to his tongue, the salty-bitterness of his spill alongside the oil he was using to keep Marcus’ cock hard.

_Please,_ Marcus thought. As hard as he could. The word was echoing inside of him. Loud enough to start some kind of avalanche as Esca’s hand started moving again. Certainly loud enough to start shifting a wall inside of him.

‘Come on,’ Esca said, and Marcus nodded, his cheek cupped wetly in Esca’s hand, pleasure rocking through him and his hair plastered to his head from sweat and heat.

He was desperate. That desperation cleaving through him as brutal as any knife and leaving so little behind expect the promise of pleasure and wanting his release so badly.

‘Please, _Esca,’_ Marcus said, the words coming from some deep, lost place inside of himself.

‘Please what?’

Marcus sobbed once, even as Esca’s hand moved faster and Marcus had no idea how he hadn’t come yet. How – after so long, when he was so sure just a _touch_ would do it, how had he not come? Esca’s fingers twitched on his cheek, his palm pressed closer.

‘Please let me spill,’ Marcus said, the words breathless and fast and joined together so that Marcus wasn’t even sure they made sense.

They must have, because Esca’s hands gripped his hair tight and the hand on his cock did the same. The movements on his oversensitive skin now fast and sharp and insistent, as intense as Esca’s gaze and demanding as his tongue. Marcus was glad for the ropes around him, he was shaking apart, chills and a feverish heat lancing through him, a knife edge of pleasure that threatened to gut him.

He shouted when he felt the spasms of release fall upon him, the world went murky and then became bursts of arterial red behind his eyelids. But it was so good, and he was aware that he might be saying that to Esca, because Esca laughed gently and with pleasure and was holding his cock protectively and still keeping that fierce grip in his hair.

After that, Marcus’ head swum, his body went limp in the ropes, and Esca was already up and untying his hands and rubbing the feeling back into them. Already picking up the sheet and using it to dry him down, getting the sweat off him, stopping him from catching a chill. Everything functional and fast and eschewing tenderness over getting Marcus freed and staggering over to their bed as quickly as possible.

His leg complained at him, but Marcus didn’t care, because minutes had passed and his breath _still_ shuddered out of him, aftershocks _still_ found his muscles, and when he lay down he groaned at it.

‘Not ashamed?’ Esca said, his voice so warm that Marcus blinked his eyes open to catch one of the rare times that Esca’s own gaze was truly soft. No hint of sharpness there now.

Marcus shook his head, pliant beneath Esca’s hands, muscles easing under the clever ministrations of fingers. Esca smoothed the heel of his palm carefully down the outside of Marcus’ bad thigh, encouraging muscles to lengthen and stretch, easing knots of pain and helping Marcus to breathe deeply, easily.

‘Are you sure?’ Esca said.

‘I’m not ashamed,’ Marcus replied. ‘At least, not right now.’

Lips found his and Marcus could feel the smile against his own mouth, Esca satisfied with himself, with what he’d wrought. Marcus wrapped his arms around Esca’s wiry strength, held him closer, sated beneath him and returning the kiss lazily, already slipping towards sleep.  


End file.
